From mcmahon@mail.lemoyne.edu Sat Aug 24 05:08:33 2002
Received: from mailscan6.cac.washington.edu (mailscan6.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.14])
	by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g7OC8WeY085200
	for <classics@reallists.u.washington.edu>; Sat, 24 Aug 2002 05:08:32 -0700
Received: FROM mxu1.u.washington.edu BY mailscan6.cac.washington.edu ; Sat Aug 24 05:08:32 2002 -0700
Received: from kiwi.lemoyne.edu (kiwi.lemoyne.edu [192.231.122.6])
	by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.06) with ESMTP id g7OC8VR8002202
	for <CLASSICS@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>; Sat, 24 Aug 2002 05:08:31 -0700
Received: from mail.lemoyne.edu
	([192.168.250.76])
	by kiwi.lemoyne.edu; Sat, 24 Aug 2002 08:07:19 -0400
Message-ID: <3D67774A.67B92191@mail.lemoyne.edu>
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 08:08:43 -0400
From: "John M. McMahon" <mcmahon@mail.lemoyne.edu>
Reply-To: mcmahon@mail.lemoyne.edu
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 (Macintosh; U; PPC)
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: CLASSICS@U.WASHINGTON.EDU
Subject: Apolitical Ivory Tower?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

The hits just keep coming ... with some CC.

>From the 8/22/02 *CSM*: 

"In defense of the ivory tower: Philosopher Anthony Appiah
argues the importance of 'figuring things out' over 'doing'"

Excerpt:

[Interviewer]"You've said that the life of an intellectual
is not politically effective. Why?"

[AA] "The fundamental vocation of the intellectual is to
figure things out, you know, intellego, to understand. And
politics isn't about understanding, politics is about
getting things done. Understanding can be an instrument of
getting things done, but nuance and complexity of
understanding can be an obstacle to getting things  done.
Politics – it's the art of the possible, and sometimes in
order to do the best that can be done, you have to ride
roughshod over what are, for an intellectual, important
distinctions – for example, between the truth and the untruth."

Plato's concept of the philosopher king is also mentioned
... and discounted.

Full text:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0822/p12s01-lehl.html

John McMahon
LMC
.